Abstract

DISC-UK DataShare, led by EDINA & Edinburgh University Data Library, arises from an existing UK consortium of data support professionals working in departments and academic libraries in universities (Data Information Specialists Committee-UK), and builds on an international network with a tradition of data sharing and data archiving dating back to the 1960s in the social sciences. By working together across four universities and internally with colleagues already engaged in managing open access repositories for e-prints, this partnership will introduce and test a new model of data sharing and archiving to UK research institutions. By supporting academics within the four partner institutions who wish to share datasets on which written research outputs are based, this network of institution-based data repositories develops a niche model for deposit of ‘orphaned datasets’ currently filled neither by centralised subject-domain data archives/centres/grids nor by e-print based institutional repositories (IRs).